Filmed during a sunny afternoon, the second sequence crosses the Avon River in the upstream from Bristol. The picnic area and the floating platform located below the road, and easily accessible from Bristol and Bath, help the Railway Path being a busy place. Music, conversations, and dives in the water can be heard. The route is very straight, there are many bridges and few threes. This, in addition to the flat topography of the Avon valley, increases the landscape dimension of the surrounding environment.
Although the city isn’t visually there, the intensity of a certain kind of appropriation allows to guess the presence of a major population hub close by. The physical separation of the path between pedestrians and trains is another urban component. Safety matters require a strict spatial division and a clear layout.
In the previous statement, the city is seen as a controlled and civilized world, unlike the savage world that would be anarchic. This definition is rather intuitive and can make sense, despite being insufficient and even inaccurate:
- The rural country isn’t urban, yet it is perfectly civilized and controlled
- Many urban areas have an informal and chaotic life
In the following analysis, we’ll seek, along the path, what make the city, as the narrative progresses into it. A lot of visual codes will call the feelings memory, the research will therefore include a large part of subjectivity. This statement encourages to take distance in order to avoid mistakes and common preconceptions on urbanity. We’ve for instance seen that the simple observation of the layout development level can mislead.
Also, it is sometime useful to review the anti-case study to move on, which is specifically hard here. What is the contrary of the city? The wild world or the rural land? Both seem themselves opposed. Base the approach the subject on the idea of a perfect binary conflict would be wrong.